


A Token

by Nebulad



Series: Mien'harel [11]
Category: Dragon Age (Video Games), Dragon Age: Origins
Genre: F/M, Fluff, M/M, NB Tabris, Other
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-08-05
Updated: 2016-08-05
Packaged: 2018-07-29 13:36:06
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 900
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7686601
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Nebulad/pseuds/Nebulad
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>They sat down next to him once satisfied they’d announced their presence, waiting for him to be finished with his Crow poison. They liked to use that one best, ironically, and if he was helpless and hopeless and mixing extra vials for them should they get into a pinch… well, he bought the ingredients anyway.</p><p>“How may I help you, <i>amore?”</i> he asked, sealing the bottle and wiping off his hands.</p><p><i>I need my ear pierced,</i> they said without any preamble.</p>
            </blockquote>





	A Token

It was four days before Zevran found out what happened to his earring. He’d given it away like ripping off a band-aid— a last piece of himself that he’d give to Tabris because… well, he told them as payment. Perhaps something… deeper simply demanded that if he insisted upon this self-hatred, then perhaps he should hand himself over to someone who… didn’t. Hate him, that is. Someone who pressed shy kisses on his face and let him hear their rusty voice because they weren’t afraid of him.

He’d told them to sell it or toss it or whatever they wished to do with it. Privately, he’d been meticulously going over the chest where they kept the materials they wished to barter at the next town, hoping that he didn’t find it. He hadn’t yet, but neither was Gahruil wearing it. It was as if the trinket had simply popped out of existence. The awkwardest conversation he’d ever staggered through with Tabris, and the earring was simply gone.

On the fourth day when he had admittedly given up on it, he felt a tugging on his shirt while he mixed his poisons for the day ahead. It could only really be one person, too stricken with nerves to speak— or perhaps it was simply one of those days where they didn’t, but either way Gahruil was really the only person in camp who would not say his name to get his attention. They sat down next to him once satisfied they’d announced their presence, waiting for him to be finished with his Crow poison. They liked to use that one best, ironically, and if he was helpless and hopeless and mixing extra vials for them should they get into a pinch… well, he bought the ingredients anyway.

“How may I help you, _amore?”_ he asked, sealing the bottle and wiping off his hands.

 _I need my ear pierced,_ they said without any preamble. He noticed that they’d said _ear_ and not _ears_ but it’d been four days so certainly they hadn’t simply hidden the earring away and waited as if he hadn’t noticed their ears were not pierced. _You told Alistair that you knew how to give tattoos, so I thought… maybe you know how to fix my ear._

“Do you… have an earring to put in the hole?” he asked, sort of shocked at how bloody stupid he sounded. He didn’t want to presume, but… it did sound awfully like he was fishing.

They gave him a strange look which… confirmed that they still had his earring in their possession. They fished it out from their pocket, presumably not where they kept it all the time, and held it out in their palm as if it were a live grenade and not… jewellery. _This one will work, right?_

“I told you that you could sell that thing,” he murmured, although he didn’t know why. He didn’t _want_ them to get rid of it— he wanted them to keep it, to think of him, to… know that yes he’d been an assassin and he would always be one, but he was theirs and everything that the Crows had given him and everything good that had become of him was theirs.

 _Why would I sell it?_ They closed their palm around it and brought it closer to them, as if he were going to take it. He clamped down on the urge to kiss them— for being born, for keeping his token, for not killing him, for telling him they loved him even if it’d been an accident— because it would surely derail them both.

“Why would you sell anything? For _money,”_ he reminded them.

 _You said I could wear it,_ they argued, still clutching it against their chest.

“Yes, I… did say that. And I meant it, I merely thought that perhaps…” He’d figured that he shouldn’t hope that they would want to. If he prepared himself for the worst then he was never disappointed.

 _I want to wear it. I just need my ear pierced,_ they told him. _Braska_ he felt… he felt something. Tabris was _something,_ they were _everything,_ and wasn’t he old enough and wise enough now to not be so shattered over a token? Evidently not, because they scooted a little closer and he was fairly certain he was going to do something embarrassing soon. _Please? I can ask Morrigan if you don’t want to but I kind of wanted..._

“No, Tabris, I can help you,” he said quickly. “Just.. let me go wash my hands properly. Wouldn’t that be embarrassing? After all this time, to kill you accidentally?” The laugh he let out was mostly nerves, but Gahruil smiled and settled down, opening their palm again to study their prize.

He wondered how they’d look with an earring, _his_ earring, that they’d looked at soon after they’d met and said was pretty. He remembered thinking that they weren’t used to jewels and fine things, being from an Alienage. How easy it would be— if he were so inclined of course— to gain their trust simply by showering them with trinkets… and more the egg on his face, as _they_ were the ones fetching him boots and gloves and every stray shiny bar of metal, looking at him for approval.

 _Ah Zevran, what a fool you’ve turned out to be,_ he thought, not really minding at all.

**Author's Note:**

> Okay so I like this one a bit. Sue me. [My writing blog is here](http://nebulaad.tumblr.com) and I know I've been spotty for this all week but this is day 5 of zevwarden week, on Zevran's earring.


End file.
